Ghorbonet Beram
by Weezila
Summary: Because Bokuto and Akaashi are always the given- the obvious couple in the background to every other couple's drama. And you'd be right to assume that, only they also never mentioned the amount of drama their happy ever after causes everyone else. This is their story, since it's a lot more interesting than anyone realizes.


000

 _One Year Ago…_

000

She sat, in a position of power as she gently lifted a handcrafted ceramic cup to her lips and took a delicate sip of a special sort of tea imported from her family's second latest homeland.

Then again, she was one of those women who could sit anywhere and still be in a position of power. A folding chair could be a position of power so long as _she_ sat in it, because that was the sort of role in life she had been born to, and had spent an entire lifetime perfecting until she was the absolute authority on situations like these. Situations that put her in a quite literal seat of power across a long hand-crafted table set with tea and small seeds from their second latest homeland that had turned out to be one of her favorite treats, and also quite good for heart health, or so they told her. She needed that too, as she was quite old and good health was no longer a given, but a precious gift to hold onto for the remaining years she had left.

But she didn't go for one of the treats at this moment, as munching on a seed would not give her the aura of being graceful and all-powerful in this moment. Not like sipping tea calmly while two eager eyes bored into her, waiting for her verdict.

She wanted to say the verdict was simple, however nothing in this family was ever simple, unfortunately. No, she would need to talk it out first, lead them along the lines of what she was thinking, and let them reach their own conclusions with her observations. If they too agreed with her assessment, then she would announce her own decree. If they didn't, she would need to determine why they thought differently and either convince them to agree with her own ideas or revaluate her own to see if theirs had more merit. A standard procedure, and one she felt well practiced at, especially in the fact of these three particular people—had it been the whole family it would've been much more difficult, however these three were her direct line, and had spent many decades becoming accustomed to her way of operating.

The man directly to her right, blowing gently on his own cup of tea and doing a marvelous job of pretending to be unaffected by the tense atmosphere was her eldest son. She had four sons and three daughters, but this one was her eldest and the next in line to take over her position of power in the family. She might have wished he'd pursued something more unique than business and law (after all, they had people for that sort of thing) but his tactical sense in their intensely political and traditional world was no less dulled by his legal prowess and ambition in the end. He had a long successful career as the owner of several new companies that now belonged to the family, and had retired four years ago. She knew he was studying her own tactics for the day she finally stepped down as the head of the family, but since she had not taken the role until her own father had died when she was but 73, he had a while to wait yet—at least a decade, if not longer as her father's death had been unseasonably early in a family where blood ran strong well into a person's second century. Her knees may ache, her feet unstable without a cane, and her hands a little too cold, not to mention her doctors had her on too many medications to count, but she was reasonably healthy for someone whose 96th birthday had come and gone without too much fuss four months ago. And her mind was a sharp as it ever was—much to the chagrin of her children and grandchildren (and now _great_ grandchildren) who thought they could get away with a little too much just because she was old and frail these days. Old, yes, but still perfectly suited to be the head of such a prestigious family nonetheless.

To his side was his own daughter, her granddaughter and who would be the head of the family after her son. She had six younger brothers, but this family did not work in maternal or paternal lines—the eldest was the eldest and that was that. Large amounts of siblings were par for the course, not exactly because of tradition but of habit if anything—children grew up with half a dozen siblings and wanted that for their children too.

Their family was unique with their succession of heirs belonging to the eldest child no matter the sex, however one might be surprised to find that such a traditional family also held a remarkable accepting attitude towards how those heirs came about. Almost thirty years ago this wayward granddaughter who would one day head the family had gotten pregnant just months shy of finishing her schooling, and out of wedlock no less. Some well-to-do and old families with name and power might cast her out as being unfit to be the new heir, claiming her own daughter unworthy as well. This family was not so arrogant though; this particular bloodline had learned the value of accepting everyone of blood, and never casting out relatives needlessly.

(That is not to say they didn't lose some along the way. The family did a marvelous job of maintaining everyone despite how they may grow and how many branches would spread across the world as they moved their homelands from the old Persian empire when it fell, eastward towards the Middle East and then India for several decades, and then even farther to the most eastern Asian countries where they now settled for the time being—but not one cousin nor distant nephew was forgotten, but carefully included and required to visit her at least once a year to keep ties to the family strong. The family was deeply ingrained in several cultures of hierarchy and prominence, and their businesses were vast and far reaching so that being a part of the family was not only a good way to ensure support and safety against possible tragedies and accidents, but it was also a good business decision. In her tenure as head of the family, she had only lost one great niece of her grand uncle's line and one distant second-cousin's granddaughter. He was an artist who did not believe being "trapped" to any traditional ideals— no matter how flexible— fit into his artistic lifestyle, and she was a skittish thing that married an Englishman and moved to Chicago in the States, as if the distance would cause them to forget her existence. She gave the girl the space she desired and did not make contact, however she had three lovely children of her own and when they reached of age they would reach out offers to return to the family that their mother obviously did not want. As they were toddlers, she may or may not be alive by the time that day arrived, but her son and his siblings were well aware of their responsibilities once they took their places.)

Her granddaughter was well aware of her mistake and understandably nervous about how the family would react, however it did not change much in the grand scheme of things. They did demand she chose to either marry the man responsible (boy really, at the time) or cut ties with him, which she did gladly—cut ties that is, as she was quite open about her regret and penitence for the misstep. The willingness to admit mistake and learn from it was a good quality in a future leader, she had decided, and figured the girl better for it rather than disgraced. And besides, she did indeed love her great granddaughter, the precious little thing, and the child became the next heir to the family. As the little girl grew they were quite clear that she would still be welcome as the heir no matter her questionable heritage, and they felt that knowledge to be common and secure amongst the family even as her granddaughter grew up a little more and got married to a lovely man (a nice political match as well, she might add) and had a little boy to complete the previously female-heavy household.

She had considered her line set in stone—until her great granddaughter turned of age and abdicated the title of heir of the family.

She was always very intent upon putting the opinions and will of her descendants before anything else—propriety was important, _tradition_ was important, however it was useless if no one was happy about it. Hence why the system was the way it was: to let the children grow up unburdened by this political scheming, to let them pursue any career they wanted and live their whole lives that way until they day they willingly retired, _and then_ be asked to play a role in the family's name. She herself had been a nurse—a calling she felt strongly in her youth during the second world war, even if it hadn't penetrated her birthplace of a deep desert in what was once old Persia as fiercely as it had Japan and Western Europe. She'd met her husband that way, and loved him for many years until his untimely death from a heart attack at a far too young age. It couldn't be helped though—those without her bloodline's blessings just didn't live quite as long into old age as someone like her and her children would, and even if they did it wasn't guaranteed they'd keep their wits about them like she was fortunately able to. (She had been quite clear with her children and grandchildren, that on the day it seemed her mental faculties had begun to go awry, they were to retire her gently, and yet with force, and that her death would be voluntary and quick. She had no desire to waste away as a brainless vegetable that couldn't lift a finger or speak her mind, and that was that—she'd already lived all the life she needed to and would not waste anyone's time or resources prolonging what she'd been entirely prepared to face for just under fifteen years now.)

So, she understood the need to be free, to not want to be tied down by responsibility when you still had so much life and potential in front of you. No, it was best to call them back to the folds after careers and families had grown and fled the nest, leaving you with only the family to guide you safely into your later years when youth and potential were but dreams lost to the decades. And the more diverse one could be, the better the family was for it. She was a nurse, her son was a lawyer, his granddaughter was a chef of all things. It only got stranger from there, and she was secretly quite amused and proud that her descendants could do literally anything they wanted with the family's wealth and power backing them. She considered one of her most important roles ad family head to be a dream granter—to help her precious children obtain their dreams. (Another one of her favorite roles to play was chess master—how to help her children while also somehow ensuring the family name remained on course).

But still, even understanding this, it wasn't until she'd sat down with her errant great-granddaughter and calmly talked through the child's line of thinking that the true issues came to light, and she found herself agreeing with the girl's choice—not something she'd believed possible before that fateful discussion. The girl had explained how their honesty with her had made many things clear from an early age: her mother, having made one mistake early in life, was an extremely cautious woman these days (which also explained the obvious lack of half a dozen children prevalent in every other branch of the family) and had drilled thoughtfulness and hesitation into her children so that her daughter might make better choices than she had. Not only that, but the heavy involvement of the family elders had exposed the young girl to the way of thinking the family heads had, and it had all intrigued her from the time she was young enough to know what being part of the family meant. The choices she'd made with her schooling reflected that: she wished to be a lawyer like her grandfather and work not just at the end of her life, but her entire life for the betterment of the family.

The family had a team of lawyers and young businessmen and women across the globe under the employ who actually ran their vast unofficial empire, while the elders of the family made the choices concerning who to put in those positions and what directions the businesses would go. It was not uncommon for members of the family to join those ranks, as it all but guaranteed them a position of CEO or some other well-paying position (if they could prove they could handle such a position, of course). It was just not common for someone of the _main line_ to do such a thing as well. It was highly frowned upon for an heir to take up that role, as they would be far too immersed in the family's dealings—or worse, only one part of the dealings—for far too long, and that was how people got weary or complacent, and that was how mistakes were made.

The girl was aware of this and, in her choice of being a lawyer for the family, abdicated her right as heir to her little brother—who was but three at the time.

It wasn't unheard of—her own father had become heir because his elder brother had abdicated for one reason or another—but it was certainly a surprise. Even more of a surprise was that she found herself a little pleased at the turn of events.

She did not have favorites amongst her children, however… _if_ she were to have a favorite, the little boy in question would be her clear pick amongst her great grandchildren. Her grandchildren—all 28 of them, she would proclaim coolly, although a vicious pride would always curl under her blank mask every time she could announce her vast descendants—had proliferated even more into quite a hefty barrage of children all under the age of thirty. Although her granddaughter was the eldest of her siblings, her daughter (the original heir) was not the oldest of all the direct line's great grandchildren, as she had several elder cousins who married long before her child out of wedlock. The large gap between when the girl had been born and when her younger brother had been born though (most likely due to their mother's hesitancy to have another child after the debacle of her first pregnancy) ensured that the boy was indeed youngest of all the direct line's great grandchildren (her first _great great_ grandchild was a proud new addition to the family thanks to the original heir and her lovely husband, which meant _that_ child was officially the youngest of the direct line family as a whole, at the moment). It wasn't too unreasonable, however it was a rather odd situation as it was usually the eldest to be the heir, and now this new heir was the youngest of his peers inside the family. But she was certain he could handle that challenge—and her reasoning was more than a little selfish in nature.

She was a noble woman, and she held the prestige of her entire family within her. The family had gracefully transitioned from titles such as 'Kings & Queens' to titles such as 'CEOs & Stockholder' when the concept of monarchy went out of style and people who thought themselves born with a divine right to rule people were turned against. When empires fell, when countries collapsed under wars, when natural disasters destroyed thrones and old civilizations, the family simply moved—obtaining power however the modern day and local culture dictated that was done. They maintained their honor and attitude of the old royalty of Persia, even if now their head resided in Tokyo and claimed companies and stock as their power instead of farmland and loyal subjects. She herself considered herself quite like her own great grandfather—the closest she could remember to a time the family still lived in what was once known as Persia. She remembered him being blank and regal, poised and simply the perfect ideal of what a king of old should be. She had been called a princess when she was young, but by the time the second world war had wrecked the earth, those notions had wisely been placed to rest as they gained too much attention from unsavory places, and after the war the concepts were less romanticized and more considered simply arrogant—not a reputation she needed, so her family head at the time had ended the use of those terms. However she still thought of her great grandfather as a king, and had always strived to be like him even if no one had ever called her a queen.

Her great grandson—the youngest of the direct line family for the moment—had caught her attention ever since he learned to speak. She couldn't help it, in that she'd looked for herself in all of her children and grandchildren and so on—and while they all did the family proud, not one truly fit the bill. She'd accepted the fact that the concept of royalty and how one should act in such an ancient way was outdated, and the family's mission had always been to keep with the times, so she'd come to peace with the idea of letting her strict, refined nature pass to something her children would tell their own heirs about, and nothing more. She knew her children exemplified her for a lot of their family dealings, but not one truly held the regal aloofness and calmly logical, fiercely gentle yet firmly unyielding compassion she had spent her entire life perfecting.

Until the little boy who would now one day be the family's head.

Her heart rejoiced that her spirit would live on in the tiny child who held a blank mask better than most of the adults he came across. He learned to walk and he was graceful, he learned to speak and it was calm and eloquent. He began schooling and found himself quick and shyly intelligent, and he even took up sports and found himself coordinated and talented—enough to be a setter on a nationally ranked team, and she was told a setter was one of the most talented players on the court (she'd never had any desire to learn about sports before, and knowing she'd looked up the rules to volleyball would give away her blatant interest in one descendant in particular, so she played dumb despite the fact she knew full well how the game worked by now, after keeping up with her great grandson's progress).

It was happenstance that he had become the heir, but she wasn't displeased in the least.

At least she hadn't been, until now. Well, not even now, with three eyes boring into her, as she would always love her great grandson, she just… wished he hadn't gone and made everything so complicated. Honestly he was the _last_ person to go and do something so reckless but… another side of her whispered that there must be a very powerful, important reason for this to have happened. The boy was too much like her after all (he was even apparently looking into becoming an ER nurse!) and she _had_ been known to act wildly at certain points in her life. Her children knew nothing of those moments as she's soothed them over perfectly, but still. The instinct was there, and she knew exactly where the motivation came from.

Love.

She wanted to whack that nervous look off of her granddaughter's face—couldn't she see her son was far too level-headed to have eloped for any reason other than that he was in love? The boy was not capable of making a fuss, however his chosen lover was known to be as wild as the family he hailed from, so it certainly explained some things.

But she was regality, she was poise. She was in a seat of power and with it, held an impossible amount of weighty responsibility on her frail shoulders, and she did not do such things as _whack people_ , so she took another sip of tea and maintained her blank mask that she knew unnerved her children so much. Her son was almost sweating from how hard he was pretending the oppressive atmosphere didn't affect him as he looked into his own tea with faux nonchalance.

She took another calm sip and waited a little longer in the silence, letting the facts lay on the table between them.

After another solid minute of quiet as she breathed evenly and considered the lovely color of the clear evening sky outside the window, she graced them with a response.

"He did not marry into an outwardly displeasing family." She mused smoothly, her voice flat an apathetic.

Her son took a sip of his tea while his daughter straightened up imperceptibly, knowing her father had deflected the answer to her instead.

"No… I did look into the family as well, when they began dating. Alarming perhaps, but not… uncooperative, I believe." She allowed, clearing her throat once. "I just don't get how he could have done this so hastily—it's entirely not like him. I have nothing against his choice of spouse, only that… it makes the line succession difficult."

Ah, yes. Line succession, the next heir. It _was_ an important detail.

And her precious great grandson had gone off and married another _man_ of all things. Not that she cared about that particular hot-button topic, but so far as future children went it left very few options.

However, they _did_ have options.

The original heir had a child that could be named, even if the little boy's mother had rejected being heir herself. There were lovely medical technologies out there meaning surrogacy was an option in order to continue the biological line. Having one child would be… difficult, as now the child would be heir to not one, but _two_ rather… _prestigious_ families and the melding of the traditions would be a nightmare and a half. Having more than one child that could inherit would be best, however they did not know if this other family would require the eldest child, the eldest male or female child, or some other criteria that would conflict with their own requirements. Much less as the children grew—how would they react to being the heirs of _different_ families while belonging to both? She was under no illusions that this other family would submit to their vast heritage and tradition like many of the others who married in did, as this other family was arguably older and without a doubt equally as prestigious in their own ways. Tokyo was also their 'home turf' so to speak, as they'd been on this exact land for thousands of years while her family we practically foreigners in comparison.

She also knew they preferred arranged marriages, which meant their troublesome boy who'd married her great grandson probably broke several contracts to elope out of nowhere, which would undoubtedly become a royal pain in their asses at some point. And to top it all off, this young man who'd stolen her youngest's heart wasn't even the direct heir of his family! He was extremely close, but not quite. In some ways that would put the pressure off the children they someday had, but in other ways it was a political nightmare for the heir of their family to have married so irrationally, and into an equally notorious family but _not_ their heir—it was a slight to their reputation that they had not joined the _two_ heirs properly. Not to mention the true heir to that family was a female, which would've made everything easier had it just worked out like that.

But it hadn't, and her great grandson had fallen for the _cousin_ of an heir, and a boy at that.

She sighed silently.

However reasonable all this scheming may seem from the vantage of the family, to young newly-weds it was awfully close to dictating their lives or their children's lives, which was territory she's rather not get into, to be honest. But if it came to it she would have the discussion with great grandson at least. The boy after her own heart—a young man now, apparently—was reasonable and on an intellectual level they were nearly equals so far as opinions and thought processes went. She was entirely positive he was prepared to face the consequences of his actions, so all they need do was sit down and discuss what options they had. Obviously, what was done was done, and he was a logical, serene soul who would be willing to compromise and work around the obvious boulder he'd just dumped in their nicely flowing river. They would find a solution acceptable to the family at least—and then they could begin working with this other family to pacify them as well. And then…

She sighed again, heaving enough that her granddaughter looked at her in curiosity of her veiled thoughts.

The _biggest_ problem at the moment… was that although their marriage is legal in several places, it was _not_ legal in Japan just yet. Old laws in India and old Persia concerning their archived royal status would make it acceptable for the means they needed it, however if their marriage wasn't legal in Japan, where the current family resided, then any children they had would legally not be allowed to be the owners of their business empire. Her great grandson could become head, but the line would technically end thereafter if his children could not be legally recognized as his and his husband's. Adoption and provisional marriages from the United States did not cover the deeply complicated laws that held their family in charge of their vast powers.

Their options there would be for each husband to legally "marry" some girl out of political convenience, although the marriage would be nothing but a contract on paper. They wouldn't even have to meet the girls and could happily continue to be together without issue. She was sure her great grandson would admit to that with a little persuasion, as it was a very reality-based mindset, however this other family was not known to be… practical. Even suggesting that to them might be highly insulting, so she shelved that thought for the time being.

She could also begin the process of moving the family center to America—specifically New York where it _was_ legal. However to get through all the red tape would take until her great grandson was ready to lead the family—meaning the better part of a century. The timing wasn't the only unappealing part, but the fact that the laws in America fluctuated so vastly with changing heads of state and their current political climate that was not _nearly_ as stable and traditional as the one in Japan. America would offer them many opportunities, however a lot of their power came from their deep history, which may be lost in the great Melding Pot. Besides, traditional countries granted them traditional rights—their historical importance to governments and regimes granted them abilities and rights that not many companies or businesses were ever offered, and that would not happen across the sea. She and the heads of the family before her had discussed in length the benefits of continuing their family's trek east from time to time, however as of this moment the benefits did not outweigh the downsides of making that big of a jump just yet. This eloping business brought it to the table again, but reconsidering, she still did not feel it time to move. Tokyo was quite advanced so far as business went, and globalization meant they had their roots in American business already without having to physically move their presence there, and she predicted that would continue until something went wrong in Japan—badly enough to need to remove themselves or one reason or another.

Things were not bad enough, just yet. In the grand scheme of things, this was but a minor bump in the road—not a crumbling of the country's infrastructure.

If the atmosphere in Japan would not let her line continue, and they couldn't leave Japan… the answer was quite obvious. They needed to change Japan.

She smiled—a rare enough event to make her son and granddaughter tense up, their eyes widening ever so slightly.

She took a sip of tea.

"I would not worry about the line of succession." She finally announced, her voice smooth as the fading sky outside. "Summon these two young men to me, and send an envoy to our new relatives. We will discuss this further, before we act."


End file.
